


The Arena

by Menya_Savut



Series: preoccupations with humanism [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Platonic Kissing, Probably PTSD, an overly creative interpretation of stockholm syndrome?, not even proofread, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 22:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14246673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menya_Savut/pseuds/Menya_Savut
Summary: What is the difference between choosing to follow your destiny and choosing your own destiny?(This work can be read as a stand-alone.)





	The Arena

**Author's Note:**

> Please be advised: I watched all of Trollhunters in the last week and I've decided that I don't like Merlin for unfounded reasons and this fic is the manifestation of that overreaction. Also none of the Trollhunters characters actually do anything in this fic, and I'm really sorry that I wrote this, but apparently not sorry enough to not post it

 

Percy looked up as Draco walked into the conference room. “How’s Jim?”

“Hiccup’s sitting with him,” Draco said. He flicked his wand and the papers strewn across the table began to sort themselves into stacks. “What are you doing up? I told you to go back to sleep.”

“We should all be asleep,” said Percy.

Draco turned toward the chalkboard to wipe it clean, but paused at the lines of Greek scribbled across it.

“Percy – what’s this?”

When Percy didn’t answer right away, Draco turned to look at him. Percy was holding something – Draco hadn’t noticed it before. It looked sort of like a Muggle screwdriver, but it was smaller than any Draco had seen. Percy turned it over in his hands, staring down at it.

“Percy? Are you alright?”

Percy looked up, but not at Draco. His mind seemed to have left the room completely.

Draco sat down across from him. “Hey – what are you thinking?”

“After I graduated high school,” said Percy, “Annabeth asked me what I wanted to do. She was going to college in New Rome, and I thought I’d move there with her, but I didn’t really have any ideas. I ended up spending most of my time at Camp Jupiter.”

“What did you do there?” asked Draco.

“Well...I was mostly with the youngest kids. Camp Jupiter...it’s kind of intense there. I mean, it’s one thing to train to fight monsters, but it’s another to actually form legions and operate as an army. But the little kids weren’t all somber – I mean, they wanted to be, and their centurions wanted them to be, but most of the time they were just like any other kids.”

The screwdriver stilled in Percy’s hands. Draco gazed at it.

“When this is over, I want to go back to Camp Jupiter, be a counselor,” said Percy. “They have leaders, and trainers,but they don’t have anyone to just...be someone to go to, when you need help with something other than fighting. I just...I don’t want a bunch of little kids to grow up thinking they’re supposed to die in battle.”

Percy rapped the end of the screwdriver on the surface of the table. The disturbance elicited a hum from the shallow basin resting at the other end of the table. They’d been in the Pensieve not four hours ago, when Jim had provided his memory of the alternate universe where he wasn’t a Trollhunter, where Merlin spoke to him.

Merlin had spoken to Draco too, in a dream one night while he was staying over at Harry’s flat. Draco had only seen a blue-green light, but he’d heard a voice – _Draco Malfoy, I request your service...Come to the Forbidden Forest at dusk...Bring only your wand and a Pensieve..._

Harry and Ron had come to the forest with him, but they and everything around them had disappeared as soon as the sun had set. And then Draco had appeared here, wand in one hand and Pensieve cradled in the other arm, in the underground warehouse where he’d met Percy Jackson and Hiccup Haddock, who had received similar cryptic messages.

_You are to help James Lake Jr. in his quest to defeat Gunmar the troll...You will use the expertise you have gained in your own lives to aid him...You will defeat Gunmar at whatever cost..._

“Draco – I want—”

Draco was shaken out of his reverie at the sound of Percy’s voice. He looked up. Percy’s eyes were dark, like a stormy, roiling ocean.

“I want to destroy the amulet,” said Percy.

He stood up abruptly and growled lowly under his breath. Draco watched him.

“You must think I’m crazy.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what I think,” said Draco.

In the Pensieve, Draco had watched Merlin tell Jim that of all the creatures of the worlds, he’d chosen him. _Show them why_ , he’d said.

And now Claire was gone, and Dr. Lake had been hidden away, and Jim couldn’t pass one night without jerking awake, pleading for his mother, trembling uncontrollably.

 _There will come a day, Trollhunter, when you must face the fight alone._ Kanjigar had said that – yet another dead spirit.

Harry had never been alone. Even in death, even after death, the school had stood with him. And Harry had known it.

Did Jim know it? Did Jim understand that to truly be alone, your loved ones had to separate from you, just as you separated from them?

Did Jim understand the difference between choosing to follow your destiny and _choosing your own destiny?_

Percy shook his head tiredly. The silvery strands glimmered under the lights.

“Merlin chose a human child,” said Percy, “because a human child is the perfect mix of innocence and ignorance. He doesn’t know his limits. He’ll give every last scrap of himself to the world until he’s spent.”

Percy extended his right hand toward Draco.

“ _Aguamenti,_ ” Draco muttered.

Percy caught the water and spread it thinly across the chalkboard, until the Greek letters dissolved away and the board was clear once again.

 

Draco could barely see through the dusty haze of the air, but he saw the body crumble beside him.

“Percy!”

The blood goblin at the other end of Draco’s wand disintegrated as he fell to his knees. “ _Protego!_ ” he shouted, and a shimmering dome descended around him, isolating him and Percy’s prone body from the crumbling stone around them.

Draco pointed his wand at Percy’s neck. “ _Consarcio!_ ” he muttered urgently, and watched the yawning gash seal itself up. Percy was deathly white and he gritted his teeth in agony, but somehow he had managed to stay conscious through the ordeal. Draco faintly heard the sound of metal clanging against the magical barrier, the growling and rumbling of the monsters around him, but he ignored it all.

“Draco...”

“Shh...relax...”

Draco passed his wand down Percy’s body, closing wounds as he went. _Consarcio_ would stitch the skin together, but the flesh underneath would stay just as ragged as when the troll’s claws first tore through it.

“Draco...the barrier...won’t hold forever...”

“I think it’s time for you to go home, Percy.” Draco reached up and pushed Percy’s bangs away, felt the clammy skin there. “There’s no ambrosia and nectar in this world, no potions...you’re done here.”

“But...Jim...”

“There will always be warriors,” said Draco, “but who will tell the children that they shouldn’t have to fight?”

Percy sighed. His eyelids fluttered shut.

“I’ll deal with Merlin,” said Draco. “I promise.”

Percy’s laugh was no more than a breath. “He’ll kill you.”

“So let him kill me,” said Draco. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Percy’s cold cheek. When he pulled away, his wand was raised.

“ _Portus._ ”

The ball of blue light floated down and sank into Percy’s chest.

 

Gunmar had fled. All at once, his troll army had sheathed their weapons and retreated with him. Arcadia was won for now. Draco moved among the rubble, driving away gruesomes and cobbling the pieces of fallen trolls back together. He felt the grit under his eyelids and the chill of sweat against his skin. Soon it would be dawn.

Draco didn’t know what he told the others to explain Percy’s disappearance, but no one questioned him about it. No one said much of anything at all. Eventually, everyone went to bed.

Draco waited until the warehouse was silent. Then he got up and went to Jim’s room. He stood in front of the closed door for what felt like ages, but finally he willed himself to turn the knob.

Hiccup was with Jim again; the two of them were passed out on the old bed, still fully dressed. Draco was glad; at least they’d managed to sleep. Draco moved over to the nightstand where the Amulet rested, and picked it up.

He wished Harry were here, instead of him. Harry would have known how to explain to Jim why being Merlin’s puppet was so wrong, that he was the Trollhunter regardless of what Merlin had said and what the Amulet had done. Harry would’ve made Jim understand, and Draco wouldn’t have had to skulk around like a guilty thief.

Or maybe Harry would have understood something more about Merlin and the Amulet, and he wouldn’t have wanted to destroy it.

But Merlin had chosen Draco. He’d chosen Draco just as he’d chosen Jim. Now Jim was the Trollhunter, and Draco had his Amulet gripped between his fingers.

The conference room was deserted. The only light came from the Pensieve, but its surface stood completely still. There were no memories within it. Draco set the Amulet on the conference table and pulled the little screwdriver out of his pocket. The Amulet’s blue light glowed softly.

Draco closed his eyes and breathed.

He opened them and flipped up the lid of the Amulet. He carefully removed the stones within and wrapped them up in a conjured handkerchief. Then he picked up the little screwdriver and set it against one of the screws around the edge of the Amulet. He twisted.

Flames leapt up around him and a deafening roar filled his ears. Draco looked around wildly and saw stacks of broken furniture, old spellbooks, rusted instruments towering up to the ceiling. Everything was on fire. Beside him, Vincent Crabbe screamed and screamed—

“Draco Malfoy.”

Draco turned around just in time to see the Fiendfyre charging toward him. Then he was engulfed in it; he screamed in shock but he didn’t have his wand and his body wouldn’t move – and then a wizard walked out from the flames.

He looked just like all the paintings of him, long beard reaching toward the floor, starry cloak and hat, thin and tall. Draco met the pale green eyes and knew, in a flash of understanding, what he was. The white-blue light of the Amulet was just the same as the glow of the transportation spell he’d cast on Percy hours before...

“You’re a Horcrux – you saved your soul in a _spell_ – so you could travel between the worlds – who did you kill?”

“I did not murder anyone; my soul is whole,” said Merlin, his voice just as craggy as it had been in Jim’s memory. “In any case, it is of no importance. I have come to you because you have a question for me, and I have a question for you.”

“What question?” spat Draco. “I’m here to free Jim from you.”

“Is that what you are doing?” asked Merlin, his face unconcerned. “I thought you wanted to know about destiny.”

“I know enough,” Draco growled.

“Do you?” said Merlin. “Tell me – why did Voldemort kill Harry Potter’s parents?”

“He heard part of a prophecy that foretold his demise at the hands of a boy born at the end of July whose parents had escaped him thrice,” said Draco.

“Very good,” said Merlin, and Draco felt bizarrely as if he were sitting in McGonagall’s Transfiguration class again. “Voldemort heard the first part of the prophecy and he made a choice. He chose Harry Potter, and by doing so he established his greatest enemy. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” said Draco.

“So it is our choices that matter more than our destinies,” said Merlin. “But – did Voldemort’s choice not fulfill part of the prophecy?”

“Fulfilling a prophecy by choice and doing what destiny tells you to do are two different things,” said Draco.

“But you are making a choice now, Draco,” said Merlin. “You are trying to shape destiny, just as Voldemort attempted to do. But the prophecy came true in the end, did it not? Through Voldemort’s and Harry Potter’s choices, destiny prevailed.”

“I don’t care whether destiny prevails or not,” said Draco. “I care that a boy understands that he is independent of his destiny.”

“But is he? Was Harry Potter, who made a choice with full knowledge that his choice would fulfill the prophecy, independent of his destiny?”

“Yes,” said Draco. “Harry made a _choice_.”

Merlin gazed impassively at him. “Then I have only one more question for you. Why did I choose _you?_ Why did I choose you over Harry Potter, over Weasley or Granger, over Longbottom? What do you have that the others do not?”

“I don’t know,” growled Draco.

“Then I will tell you,” said Merlin. “You have never fought against evil. Those that supported Harry Potter know what it feels like to hold the world in their hands. You do not, and that ignorance is your strength.

“Destiny has brought you here, Draco, and now you must make a choice. Will you free Jim by destroying the Amulet, or will you free Jim by keeping it intact?”

Draco jerked; he stood on shaky legs, his arms bracing himself against the conference room table. In front of him lay the Amulet, glowing just as it had been before.

The screwdriver was still in Draco’s hand. He set it down and reached for the handkerchief. With numb fingers, he replaced the stones in their original positions and clicked the Amulet shut.

Draco would not destroy the Amulet. Jim would.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from chapter 23 of HBP, where Harry thinks about the difference between being dragged into an arena or walking in with your head held high. Page 312 of the US original hardcover version (cite ur sources kids :P)  
> I don't have anything to say for myself. The ideology is poorly defined, the premise lacks context, I keep writing the same characters and the same ideologies, and I kind of don't entirely agree with what I wrote. Um. Thanks for reading?


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